March 2013

03/29/2013

From Colorlines:On Monday, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Díaz was a guest on the “The Colbert Report.” His segment which ran close to seven minutes focused on immigration reform and his work with Freedom University, the tuition-free organization that provides rigorous, college-level instruction to all academically qualified students regardless of their immigration status.“Every single immigrant we have, undocumented or documented, is a future American. That’s just the truth of it,” Díaz told Colbert.Click here.bh

03/27/2013

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Wednesday that a Hewitt man convicted of burning his two sons alive in a backyard storage shed in 1986 deserves a new trial.

The appellate court stopped short of finding Ed Graf innocent of the crime. But in the opinion, the justices agreed that “the false testimony of arson investigators violated his right to due process.”

Graf’s attorney, Walter M. Reaves Jr. of Waco, has sought to overturn Graf’s conviction on the basis that arson testimony given by experts at his trial was based on flawed investigative methods that scientists now know to be false.

03/17/2013

The immigration debate is now in full swing. Historically, the president’s State of the Union address sets out his policy agenda; the party in opposition is given an opportunity to respond; pundits then weigh in on whether the president can achieve his goals. As debates unfold in Congress, one thing is clear: partisan wrangling of past sessions may actually subside on this vitally important set of issues.

Just a few weeks ago, a bipartisan group of eight senators pledged to work together toward meaningful reform. With the president’s call for immigration reform, there now appears to be new life for this long-festering issue.

It will not be easy. Questions about border security, enforcement, visas for those with needed technological skills, and — most controversial — possible paths to citizenship for undocumented individuals will require thoughtful analysis and considerable wisdom. In the debate to come, however, one important dimension of the broader set of immigration issues is a highly attractive candidate for a bipartisan moment. It is a dimension speaking to a bedrock human value cherished on both sides of the aisle. It is about children.

An American story: Angela is an outstanding young woman, full of promise. She is respected by her teachers and peers, active in her community and on target to graduate this spring as her high school’s valedictorian. Across the nation, some of our finest colleges and universities have Angela on their list as an attractive prospect for admission. But there’s a problem: it’s unlikely she will attend college at all. The reason — Angela is undocumented.

Why? When she was 7, Angela’s parents brought her to the United States across the porous U.S.-Mexico border. They were (and are) undocumented. Angela doesn’t remember much about her early years in Mexico. Not surprisingly, she considers herself a typical American teenager.

Angela’s undocumented status did not prevent her from excelling academically in her large public high school in Texas. But her status will prevent her from being eligible for federal financial aid — the only way her family can afford to send her to college. Even if Angela finds a way to pay for her education, she will likely be unable to obtain appropriate work upon graduation. Angela represents a real story — an American teenager caught in legal limbo with crushing practical consequences.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, 65,000 young men and women like Angela graduate from America’s high schools each May. Despite the very public presence of these children, federal authorities have long determined they are a “low priority” for enforcement actions. Result: Angela and her similarly situated colleagues are, for all practical purposes, permanent residents of this country but with strictly confined access to higher education and limited ability to work.

Holding Angela — and the estimated 1.5 million undocumented children in this country — responsible for their parents’ illegal actions years earlier is fundamentally unfair.

More than 30 years ago, the Supreme Court, in the landmark case of Plyler v. Doe, guaranteed undocumented children the benefit of a free public primary and secondary education. While decrying the illegal activity of parents bringing innocent children into our country, our nation’s highest court was unwilling to hold little children responsible for their parents’ actions. That is consistent with plain common sense — and fundamental notions of basic fairness.

Suppose 7-year-old Angela had been a passenger in the backseat of her parents’ car when the vehicle is pulled over by state or local law enforcement for a traffic violation. The police officer would naturally hold the parent driving the car responsible, issue a citation and levy a fine. If the offense were serious enough, perhaps the parent’s driver’s license would be revoked. But under no circumstances would a reasonable person consider it morally right to hold Angela — the child in the backseat — accountable for her parent’s violation, no matter how flagrant. To do so would be unspeakably unjust.

Immigration in America is a vexing issue that continues rightly to draw the public’s attention. As our nation considers the practical costs and benefits of proposals now coming forward, we should not lose sight of a profound moral question: Should undocumented children face a lifetime of punishment for a crime they did not commit and which, at the outset, federal law enforcement made utterly inadequate efforts to prevent? Fundamental principles of freedom and justice — and plain common sense — cry out the answer: No.

Call it the Golden Rule of immigration reform. Let men and women of good will agree to that reform, then go on to face other issues. Angela — and tens of thousands of others like her — deserve simple justice.

A former federal judge and solicitor general for President George H.W. Bush, Ken Starr is president of Baylor University.

03/15/2013

With immigration courts still backlogged more than a year after the Obama administration launched a controversial policy to close certain deportation cases, the nation's top immigration judge has encouraged colleagues to take matters into their own hands.

In a memo issued this month, Chief Immigration Judge Brian O'Leary wrote that judges are “encouraged to consider” a landmark ruling from last year that allows them to close deportation cases over the objection of prosecutors.

The decision was hailed by immigration lawyers, who said it will help relieve heavy dockets of languishing cases. San Antonio had the second-largest backlog in the state with 10,000 cases pending last year.

But a former immigration judge criticized the guidelines as sending the message that immigration laws won't be enforced, adding that administrative closure, which puts deportation proceedings on the shelf, leaves immigrants in legal limbo.

The recommendation to consider closing cases despite the government's objection came in a memo in which O'Leary lamented the backlog in the nation's immigration courts.

Morton's prosecutorial discretion guidelines, which encouraged ICE's attorneys to focus on immigrants who committed serious crimes and shelve the cases of those who meet certain guidelines, such as serving in the military or having U.S. citizen families, haven't made much of an impact, Curtright said.

Of the more than 16,000 cases closed since the so-called Morton Memo was issued in 2011, only about 200 were in San Antonio courts, according to TRAC.

Administratively closing a case means a judge sets it aside and takes it off the docket, but it can be reopened at any time.

To deal with the backlog, O'Leary wrote, judges can administratively close cases even when ICE prosecutors object. In the past, he wrote, judges couldn't close a case unless the government recommended it. An appeals case decided last year changed that.

In the Matter of Bavakan Avetisyan, the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled that immigration judges can administratively close cases even if one side objects.

“Requests for administrative closure ... should be granted in appropriate circumstances. Since our resources are limited, those resources must be applied to situations where there is an actual dispute between the parties,” O'Leary wrote. “However, administrative closure cannot be used simply to remove a case from the court docket.”

03/13/2013

Officials have noticed an unusual trend along the border recently: more undocumented immigrants turning themselves in. Though the exact cause is unclear, some say the sequester might have something to do with it.

03/08/2013

Baylor Law
School will be hosting free Clinics to assist undocumented young people who
qualify for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program at the
Law School on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from March 19 to April 9, 2013.

At the Clinics,
law students, under the supervision of Professor Laura Hernandez and Adjunct
Professor Susan Nelson, will assist applicants to prepare the forms and
documents necessary to apply for benefits under the DACA program. The Baylor
Law School Immigration Clinic will not provide any additional services after
the Clinics.

In order to
participate in the Clinics, applicants must call or email the Clinic and
complete an “Applicant Information” form. NO
WALK-INS.

03/06/2013

You may ask why I am weighing in on school discipline issues. How does that relate to immigration?

For six months, I have been working with young people who are applying for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). I have been appalled by the number of young people with misdemeanor convictions received for school discipline issues for which they most often plead guilty without legal representation. This causes problems and expense in the DACA process and in other areas of their lives.

Ticketing for nonviolent misdemeanors forces students to go to court, Jefferson told the Senate Jurisprudence Committee on Tuesday. In addition to being a waste of resources, he said, that practice makes it more difficult for students to turn their lives around. “What used to be, in our day, a trip to the principal's office now lands you in court,” he said. “We're overcriminalizing low-level, nonviolent offenses in the classroom ... and then they're on a path to our criminal justice system.”

I applaud Chief Justice Jefferson for taking on this important issue and proposing a solution.

03/04/2013

Washington, DC - The House on Thursday, with broad bipartisan support (286-138), passed S.47, the Senate's version of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), the same bill which had passed the Senate three weeks ago, also with strong bipartisan support (78-22- including those of every woman, all Democrats and just over half of Republicans). This is in stark contrast from last year when the two chambers and the two parties could not come to an agreement on VAWA.

"AILA applauds this important step forward in expanding protections for all victims of crime and human trafficking," said Laura Lichter, AILA President. She added, "S.47 allows for crucial funding to continue for programs that protect immigrant victims of domestic violence and sexual assault"

The newly passed legislation creates and expands federal programs to assist local communities with law enforcement and to aid victims of domestic and sexual abuse. On immigration issues, the bill contains fixes including the survival of the VAWA petition for children of deceased self-petitioners and the extension of protections under the U visa in regards to children who age-out while waiting for applications to be processed. It also provides for training for law enforcement officers on U and T visas which grant critical protections for immigrant survivors of crime and human trafficking.

Lichter concluded, "One positive sign that came from this vote is the fact that Congress proved it can put politics aside and work together to do the right thing for women and for America. It means that nearly 19 million immigrant women can now feel safer."